A few days back, in Rockstar Backs Down, I mentioned that Manhunt 2 had be re-rated from “AO” to “M”. This upset, among others, California State Senator Leland Yee, who called for “transparency” and exact details on what was changed.

A response has now been issued by Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB, in which the organization has basically told the critics to go peddle their papers elsewhere, although in politer terms.

As it is, I can’t see why this matter was raised in the first place, at least insofar as the ratings are concerned. In looking up the ratings, I see that “M” is for 17+, and “AO” is 18+. That’s a difference of only one year. If “AO” had been 21+, then I could see they might have concerns.

As it is, I don’t see why this one-year difference is such a big thing for retailers, either. Unless perhaps they think potential customers are scared off by “Adults Only”, relating it somehow to porn? Or that “underage” people might try to buy it because of the rating?

Of course, none of that has ended the speculation on whether 2K has manuevered this controversy to help sell the game on release. There is a cynical majority that believes 2K was ready, one way or another, to have the game re-rated after the dust settled.

I’m rather with the majority myself, figuring any company that creates a game like this wouldn’t be scared to pull any marketing trick to sell it. In any case, you can read the ESRB response at Gamasutra.

Rockstar tried to push it to see how far they could go. They pushed too far.

The ESRB came back and said, “This game is rated AO, because of X, Y, and Z.”

This came as no big surprise to Rockstar, which was HOPING for an “M”, but knew an “AO” was more than just possible. They told the dev team to remove X, Y, and Z. Meanwhile, they made a big to-do about the situation, trying to milk it for all its worth.

They resubmitted the game, minus the parts that the ESRB had the problem with, and the ESRB said, “Fine, you removed the necrophilia references and the cannibalism scene… you are now just BARELY within our guidelines for rated M, so here you go.”

That’s all. Now everyone’s going crazy like there was some kind of conspiracy between the ESRB and Rockstar. Movies get re-submitted for different ratings ALL THE FRIGGIN’ TIME. What’s the big deal?

As far as the “censorship” of the console manufacturers or retailers… I call B.S.

I run a gaming website. I sell indie games. Not nearly as many as I’d like, but that’s another story. I’m only going to sell the games that I want to sell. Is that censorship? Heck no. That’s me exercising my rights. It’s only censorship if the government comes in and tells me what I am no longer allowed to sell.

I’m just a little annoyed that this thing is turning into such a big deal.

After they started the “voluntary enforcement” of the R rating at movie theaters a few years ago, the “R” rating ceased to be the most money-making rating. Suddenly film studios were trying to get the rating DOWN to PG-13 instead of UP to R.

That method was tried once upon a time, IIRC – the RSAC system. I think it had three categories – nudity/sex, violence, and language. Some publishers (LucasArts is the one I could find) favored that system. But companies that did both console & computer games favored the ESRB system.